


Day Five Hundred and Eighty-Six

by TheArchaeologist



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Apocalypse, Five spent a long time alone ok, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, I have many feels about it, Isolation, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Survival, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22573828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArchaeologist/pseuds/TheArchaeologist
Summary: When Five thinks of the apocalypse, he normally remembers the ash and the heat and the scramble to find clean drinking water.However, there were other days during his time there.Days when it was not the heat he had to suffer through, but the cold. When instead of watching the fires in the distance and hoping they blew in the opposite direction, it was ice and wind threatening his existence. When, rather than choking on the thick embers that floated through the air, he was left breathing in numbing snow, freezing in his throat and leaving him gasping.There were many other days in the apocalypse.This is the five hundred and eighty-sixth.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 117





	Day Five Hundred and Eighty-Six

Five cannot feel his toes.

His boots are sturdy things, a chance find in the crumbled remains of an outdoor store offering rope and tents and thermals to people who find mountaineering a relaxing weekend hobby. A lot had been burnt away, evaporated in the intense heat that took most things soft and useful, but Five was still able to scavenge a few items, things he now counts himself as lucky to possess as time rolls by and the quality of his finds starts to increasingly deteriorate. 

Shoes are quickly joining clothes as being a pain to salvage. He is growing, albeit haltingly, meaning Five has to constantly keep an eye out for new things to wear that do not rise above his ankles or leave his wrists exposed. This pair of boots are the seventh or eighth set, the rest either outgrown or so worn Five might as well not wear them in the first place.

They are also Five’s favourites, mainly because they are waterproof.

However, at some point in the last few months that has, apparently, changed.

Five’s fingers jitter, clashing together as they fumble for purchase on the red plastic lighter. Before him, spread out in a pathetic pile of old bits of wood and the scrunched-up pages of a gossip magazine, is the pitiful result of Five’s panicked scavenge for firewood, collected in a frenzy when he realised the dark clouds on the horizon were the signs of a rapidly oncoming snowstorm and not the simple heavy rain he had been expecting.

Now, it is the only dry material around, unless he fancies burning his limited supply of clothes.

The wind howls, crashing like waves into the few standing structures left in the world, whistling into nooks and crevasses in long, mournful tunes. It catches things, making them tumble and freefall to the ground in a jarring, disorganised clatter that sends flight instincts up Five’s spine, his ears long desensitised to anything other than his own voice and the occasional crumble of a wall in the distance. 

Dolores, carefully tucked up under a blanket and sat comfortable on a chair, reminds him to stay focused on the task at hand.

“I’m t-t-tr-” Five narrowly misses biting his tongue in half as his teeth jump together painfully, “I-I’m try-y-ing.”

The expedition into the cold for supplies had been planned. He needed food, things that could last more than a few days, and without any way of knowing how long the storm would be hanging around, Five had little choice but to venture out before it he was stuck in the worst of it.

The use of his limited fire supplies when he returned had been planned. Wandering through snow was never pleasant, especially since whatever caused the end of humanity seems to have majorly impacted on the world’s weather. It is never just snow, a light flurry or a gentle, Christmas card sprinkle, but ice, and blizzards, and winds that wail so fast that Five is sure one day he will be picked up and carried off. Going out meant getting wet, his clothes, his skin, his hair, and although using his meagre fire materials straight away was risky, it was the better option in comparison to sitting damp and praying hypothermia did not come to call.

The cleaner clothes he would immediately change into once back had been planned. They would not be warm, Five is not idiotic enough to leave an open fire going unattended for the decadence of having something heated to switch into, but they would be dry, which is close enough.

Five is a planner. He has to be, otherwise he will not survive any longer than it takes for his body to shut down and kill him. There is no backup here, no superpowered siblings to swoop in to save the day or Dad to pick him up in an expensive car after a long mission. He only has himself to count on, and in order to do that Plans A, B, and C all have to be in place to give himself that safety net in this acidic, decaying, corpse of a world. 

It is just Five, and the bugs, and Dolores.

He fucked up somewhere though, because he failed to consider a blizzard rolling in months too early for winter. He also failed to consider how snow tends to cover things. Useful things, like the supplies, and food, and the ground Five tends to walk across.

Hence why he did not see the cracked and weakened road signalling the broken, crumbling roof to the subway station underneath.

Hence why he had no warning that it was about to break.

Hence why he fell straight through, landing in a collected pool of near-frozen water, his yell turning into a useless string of bubbles.

The limited luck that tends to follow Five these days gave him a rare two doses of divine intervention as he scrambled to the surface and sucked in a lungful of painfully sharp air. The first was the water itself, saving Five from a broken arm or leg or, heaven forbid, back. The second was his powers, which rescued him from hours of attempting to climb back out and instead dumped him face-first into the snow, a good ten metres away from the now very noticeable sinkhole swallowing a large portion of earth.

It gave up after that.

As Five continues to juggle with the lighter, the ice plunging deeper into his bones, Dolores tells him to hurry up.

In the distant background of Five’s head, one of Dad’s survival records spins, scratching and occasionally interrupted by the noise of cutlery. It drones on at him, informing him about trees and matches and how different fuels react to ignition, uselessly lecturing to Five all the ways he can make it through his current situation with the tools he does not have.

He blocks it out, willing it somewhere far away from his shoddy tarp shelter, useless fire fodder, and the lighter quaking too much in his grip to handle.

The fact that he is still shivering is a good sign, he thinks. He is _pretty_ sure he heard that somewhere.

Five tries to remember.

Dolores points out that his lips are turning blue.

Five damn near throws the lighter at her.

“D-D-Do you wa-want t-t-” His words cut off into a scratchy yell, emotions spilling into a violent sound that rasps against his throat and speaks of an oncoming cold, or flu, or perhaps something nasty thanks to whatever has been lurking in the water which has been sitting there for who knows how long.

Scrubbing an uncontrollable hand over his face, Five wills his body to listen to him, obey him, to let him take control for just a moment so he can stop his jaw bouncing and _think_. His teeth chatter within his ears, over and over and over again, the noise not dissimilar to the sound of bugs scattering desperately when he accidentally disturbs a nest. 

It grates, making his skin crawl with invisible insects and muddling his brain from concentrating even more than it already is.

All he wants to do is light the stupid fire, is that really too much to ask? Out of everything in his shitty, fucked up, ruin of a life, does this one simple task really have to be the breaking point? The moment the universe decides that he has got away with too much already and abandons him to whatever fate has left in store?

Crying about it will do nothing to help, Dolores tell him.

Fixing her with the best unimpressed look he can muster in his current state, Five sniffs, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve before focusing in on the lighter once again. He grits his teeth, forcing them shut no matter how much it makes his jaw ache.

 _Click_. His thumb slips off the sparkwheel.

 _Click_. His grip slips and the lighter drops to the floor.

 _Click_. He gets a flame going, but he stumbles in his haste to get it to the wood and loses it.

Out of all of them, Luther was always the one with superior survival skills. Five’s were mediocre, hovering somewhere in the middle between Number One’s meticulously made tent and Number Four’s scrap of material on a twig. It had been a weakness he had intended to fix, to use as another point to emphasise to Dad how eager he was to learn, to prove himself, to show he could adapt and be the good little boy soldier he wanted.

Ego and arrogance prevented that from ever happening.

Dolores calls over to him, reminding him that none of this will help him now. Five adamantly ignores her.

Then, at last, _at last_ , Five gets the beginnings of a fire.

Instantly he is there, nurturing it, encouraging it to bloom, feeding in all it needs to grow and survive and build against the trickles of air bleeding into his space, threatening to blow it out and invade his cove.

Dolores tells him not to burn his fingers off.

“At-t least,” Five stammers, kneeling as close as he is able, “I’d f-feel something.”

He wiggles his toes in his boots.

As his fire gains height, the sun, wherever it was behind the miles of cloud and blizzard, begins to set, gradually dipping Five’s scrap of a hovel into an unforgiving icy darkness. Rubble shuffles and bounces, both close by and far away, unable to stand the powers being driven into it and buckling under the pressure. Snow shifts as it gains weight, forcefully breaking whatever it has settled on or growing too large to be contained, tumbling onto the ground with a single thud that is loud enough that, if Five did not concentrate and let his mind whirl with possibilities, might be considered a footstep.

He stands briefly and pushes against the triangle roof of his shelter, breaking the solidity of the forming snow gathered there and forcing it to slide down the sides. It pushes against the tarp as it collapses down, reaching deep into his temporary home as if begging to be let in, to given shelter as well, to be company on this wild night. Five does not look when it does, because he does not need the unreasonable fear of hands, which he knows are not there, pressing against the material just before he goes to sleep.

Alone and shrouded by noise and clatter and ice, Five huddles quietly, thawing himself against the fire with nothing but its flickering, amber glow to light his face.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://ancientstone.tumblr.com/)


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